In Between

In Between is a photo essay by Tisch sophomore Alina Patrick that portrays people who fall between different identity groups. It focuses on three individuals: Ellie Winter, a woman living in Brooklyn who is half black and half white; Tisch sophomore Marley Jean Fernandes, who navigates their gender identity outside of the binary; and Emily Patrick, a half Mexican and half white woman who recently moved to East Harlem.

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Ellie Winter in Battery Park. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Winter has her hair braided in her apartment while wearing a sweater knitted in the weaving pattern of her family’s clan from Ireland. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Ellie Winter in Battery Park. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Winter has her hair braided. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Ellie Winter in Battery Park. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Winter is very confident in her black identity. She said she feels more comfortable and accepted in black communities than in white ones. In fact, she said that “It was hard to be an Irish person… because they don’t see you as Irish, they see you as black.” Although she has never felt fully a part of either racial community, she said she has found that “if you know what it means to be black, people will accept you no matter how you look. You’re a part of the community, mentally and emotionally.”

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Marley Jean Fernandes in her NYU dorm. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Fernandes in Washington Square Park. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Marley Jean Fernandes in her NYU dorm. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Fernandes on a bench in Washington Square Park. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Fernandes holding a photograph of her with her father when she was in high school and presented herself as feminine. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Marley Jean Fernandes in her NYU dorm. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Fernandes has had the experience of being perceived at times as as both a man and a woman. They said that “I feel comfortable beyond the binary of gender. I use she/her, they/them pronouns most of the time but I also don’t mind he/him… I feel more masculine on some days; more feminine on others.” The entire process of embracing a fluid identity has been confusing for Fernandes. They described it as “the internal dilemma of, ‘am I just a masculine woman? a trans guy? or maybe I am genderfluid?’ That’s something I’m figuring out currently.”

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Patrick walking by a food cart vendor near her apartment in Harlem. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

HARLEM, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 19, 2018: Emily Patrick walking through a park where kids have taken a break from playing basketball.
Credit: Alina Patrick.

HARLEM, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 19, 2018: Emily Patrick’s apartment in Harlem. She moved in about two months ago. Credit: Alina Patrick.

Patrick watches kids play soccer at a park near her apartment in Harlem. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Patrick after stopping by a Spanish pastry shop while walking her friend’s dog. (Photo by Alina Patrick)

Patrick moved from the East Village to Spanish Harlem in August 2018. She said she loves the neighborhood, but expressed how she feels out of place there. “It seems like an imposter situation,” she said. “I am part Latina but I don’t feel like I am [Latina] enough that I can confidently outright identify as a minority, especially since I have this whole added privilege of passing for white.” As a result, Patrick navigates through her life in Spanish Harlem as a white woman. She orders agua fresca from street carts and pastries from Puerto Rican bakeries in Spanish, but with an American accent. She throws Halloween parties, but does not celebrate Día de Muertos. She tries to feel connected to her Latina culture, but at times feels disingenuous because, as she puts it, “I am both, and I consider myself both, but I seem white.”